Sapling sales are booming in Jhalakathi at the end of the monsoon, and sellers are pleased with brisk business. As this is the right time to plant, buyers are picking the saplings they want and planting them around their homes and in orchards.

In Jhalakathi town the weekly market is held on Mondays and Thursdays. A sapling market for fruit, timber and medicinal trees of many kinds is held under the Basanda bridge in the West Chandkathi area. Saplings are brought by water from nurseries in Swarupkathi upazila. Buyers, sellers, wholesalers, farmers and traders gather in large numbers, and prices vary with size and quality.

Seller Ali Akbar and several others said the weekly market in Nalchhiti is held on Sundays and Wednesdays, near the old steamer ghat on the bank of the Sugandha river. Hundreds of buyers and sellers gather on market days, and saplings worth lakhs of taka are sold.

Bagri is the biggest market in Rajapur upazila, held on Sundays and Thursdays. At this market on the Barishal-Khulna regional highway, saplings of many kinds arrive by water and road. Buyers said mango, amra, jackfruit, lemon, guava, mahogany and chambul saplings sell most, and medicinal saplings are also available. Saplings sell from a minimum of Tk 30 up to Tk 3,000 depending on size and quality. Fruit saplings are far more expensive and in greater demand than timber trees.

"We have about 30 kinds of saplings, including medicinal and flowering plants and all other kinds," seller Akbar Ali said. "Saplings planted at the end of the monsoon are much less likely to die, so buyers mainly buy at this time."

Moshiur Rahman, a buyer from Nalchhiti, said: "Because the market is on the riverbank, sellers can transport the saplings easily, so they stay fresh. We can also carry them home by river. The soil around the roots stays firm, so the saplings are much less likely to die after planting."

District forest officer Md Ziaul Islam Baklai said: "June to September is the right time to plant saplings. Good saplings are now selling well at the markets. There is no alternative to afforestation for protection from natural disasters. This district has much more forest cover than other districts of the plains. We should plant more fruit, timber and medicinal saplings."

Reported by Md Atiqur Rahman.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.